And now for the other side of the story

Much hoopla about Corzine’s Board of Public Utilities approving a $515 million plan for Public Service Electric and Gas to install solar power generators on utility poles around the state. The utility’s customers will pay $1.28 for it the first year. There’s more to the story. The Star-Ledger reports $200 million has been awarded to South Solar to install the solar units. Petra Solar hired Scott Weiner as vice president and general counsel in late May. Weiner is a former BPU chief and fomer DEP commissioner. He was criticized in a scathing 2006 audit of the Clean Energy Program, that’s the one with the $80 million bank account that was kept from the Treasury. Weiner was founder of the Rutgers Center for Energy, Economic and Environmental Protection. BPU hired his group to set up meetings of a council that advised the agency on how to run the clean energy program. The center won a $3.7 million no-bid contract from the BPU to evaluate the program. (We’re not making this up.) New Jersey Citizen Action’s Ev Liebman says there is an appearance of a conflict. Weiner denies it. Corzine’s BPU president, who is married to the governor’s campaign adviser, said, “This is a good day.” Weiner also headed the New Jersey Schools Development Authority until, reports contended, Corzine asked him to leave.

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About Bob Ingle

Bob Ingle is Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey newspapers and co-author of The New York Times' Best Seller, "The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption" and "Chris Christie: The Inside Story Of His Rise To Power". He has won numerous journalism awards and is often a news analyst on radio and television. Twitter @ bobingle99.

27 Responses to And now for the other side of the story

It’s deals like this that the $80 milion was hidden for. Weiner has run two state programs poorly, yet he will walk away with tidy sums of taxpayer money. The conflict of interest is so obvious, a child could see it. Here in NJ, it is ignored. The dots in this deal connect directly back to Corzine, showing that any and all talk of ethics that Corzine utters are a joke.

More of New Jersey’s “in your face” corruption that can/will only be stopped if the Feds step in. Maybe our next Governor will create a functional AG’s office, one that does it’s job. Anything involving Jeannie Fox and the BPU stinks of corruption.

Our ethics reform governor has had a great oportunity to end even the appearance of unethical conduct in his administration for over 3 years now and has sat on his hands. Come on Jon, show us you’ve got a pair!

How many of his cronies have gotten wealthy on our dollar? How big of an roi has he realized on his political investment?

The BPU has always been a plum for appointees, watch where Fox lands after she leaves it. Time to get the BPU back on track and make it an agency that represents the people when it comes to rate increases not the career enhancer it has been.

How about we get a real reformer in the #1 chair, and a legislature that supports clean government not the oportunists and career pigs we have now. Dump them all in November!

first he spent billions on schools with none being finished, now another way to rob money, put up solar panels…..we have cell sopen for allm these people, with warm murders to live with 24-7 for heat, no solar panel needed….

I have one question. Where does old Jon boy find these people? They all must go to the same dinner parties. They are all interconnected to each other. Somebody’s wife/husband/brother-in-law/cousin/girlfriend…… At least that is the appearance I get from all this. Am I wrong???

What I find most interesting is that PSE&G should be investing in renewable energy like wind and solar on their own. It reduces their dependancy on raw materials to make power. Not having to continue to pay to use something up in order to produce a product people buy is one way of increasing profits. You would think they would want to invest in something like this to reduce their operating costs.

No, they are going to do it, collect Fed money and money out of your pocket to put in the infrastructure to make them bigger profits later. Cost of power is going up and up. People are reducing consumption by using CFLs and turning off lights (among other things). Well, that will only make your electric bill go down temporarily. PSE&G is used to having a certain amount of income to pay for their operations. As soon as that take a big hit, they will hit us with higher rates to make up for it. So in the long run, we will be using less but paying the same (or more).

It’s all about greed – greed in the political arena, greed in the public arena, and greed in the business arena. This is what happens to “free enterprise” societies that lose their “moral compass”, so the people start screwing each other over for a buck or two. Free societies require good will and responsible behavior all around if they are to survive. When that goes away, what’s happening to us as a country and a state is a part of the declining process. When honor, honesty, courage, and integrity wane, the road is always downward from there.

Putting new parts in the machine won’t give us anything more than short-term relief, and perhaps buy us some time so that we can see the truth of the matter and try to correct the flaws in the system, and especially ourselves. As Walt Kelly’s “Pogo” cartoon character said so eloquently: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

i have alot of friends and we all know how to keep secrets and i would never be able to pull off the connect dots scenarios these crooks do……HOW ARE THEY ABLE TO DO IT TIME AFTER TIME, AGAIN AND AGAIN ??

The “culture of corruption” has existed so long in NJ that it must be difficult to find anyone who, at least on the surface, shows some degree of qualifications and hasn’t been tainted.
I am not making excuses why every name that is ever involved with projects for the state seems to have skeletons, I just wonder if anyone “clean” can survive in how the state government operates?

We need to erase the slate of incumbents as much as we can this November. The “lip service” has been more rampant since the latest arrests and it still means nothing. I am sure we still have only nicked the serface and we need to keep in mind that many of the situations that are driving us to bankrupcy haven’t even recently been mentioned. This whole scandal is just one small incident amongst the massive problems that exist in this state.

Who is going to make all this money on the solar panels on electric poles? I can assure you it will not work. It’s just a way for someone to skim money from the taxpayers/ratepayers. Solar panels are not efficient. A 3 by 3 foot panel on a pole would light a streetlight for about an hour at night. And, if it was overcast (like for the past few days) there would only be a few minutes light. Each panel would need a large battery to store the charge for use at night and there would have to be an inverter (big $$$) in the circuit to change the battery to line voltage/frequency for the light. I see this project as a money maker for someone who is “connected”.

Since the Star Ledger and now Gannett knows about this, will a member of the press ask Corzine about it on the record the next time he is in front of them? “Governor, do you believe that it is a conflict of interest for Scott Weiner, former BPU head, to have been hired as VP and General Counsel at Petra Solar just two months before they were awarded a lucrative contract by the BPU? And do you believe that it was just a coincidence that this same Scott Weiner founded a group at Rutgers that was subsequently hired by the BPU to advise on a program, and then awarded a large no-bid contract to “evaluate” the program that it was also hired for as an advisor? And lastly, Governor, you asked this gentleman to leave the NJ Schools Development Authority. Were you aware that he was to receive these lucrative contracts subsequent to that?”

I really want to see Corzine confronted on this so that he has to answer for it on the record.

I don’t have a great deal of knowledge about the solar panels. From what little I do know you are probably right.
The concept sounds like a good idea, trying to harness some solar power and it might have made more “public” good sense to try to get larger arrays on the top of commercial buildings?

I can’t recall any program that ever came out of Trenton that didn’t have some side deals funneling off a chunk of the cash. There is also a tendency to proceed in a manner that benefits insiders rather than trying to do things most efficiently and effectively.

Anything that Jeanne the environmental ideologue queen does costs utility customers money. In April 2008 the BPU approved a $100 million “pilot” program to obtain 30 mega-wattts of energy. Do the math and see how much this is costing us. How is this pilot doing now?

The BPU is nothing more than a means to make Fox look good and a way to provide political paybacks and favors to hacks and other toadies.

There is no “appearance” of a conflict of interest. It’s an outright conflict! Get Weiner off the BPU payroll and out of any government job now before he mudies the waters further. Corzine call a legilative session over the summer to address ethics reform? Are you kidding? He, Codey , and Roberts are soft on the subject. Corzine should stop running his slanderous TV ads about Christie’s trestimony in Washington over the no-bid contracts. At least the taxpayers aren’t paying the bill. Not like the crap that goes on in Trenton. Have you heard the new slogan for our capitol? The Statehouse makes, and NJ quakes!

ACTIONABLE CRIMES BY PUBLIC SERVANTS—Violation of The Hobbs Act: any public officer or employee of the state or of any political subdivision thereof or of any governmental instrumentality within the state, or any person exercising the functions of any such public officer or employee. The term public servant includes a person who has been elected or designated to become a public servant. CRIME means a misdemeanor or a felony.

ACTIONABLE OFFENSES MIGHT INCLUDE:
(1) Encouraging the filing of false documents;
(2) Colluding to file false official documents;
(3) Not reporting crimes against the state (aiding and abetting)
(4) Rigging legislation to benefit a special interest.
(5) Extorting ratepayers to underwrite crimes against the state without their knowledge or consent (constitutes the crime of second degree coercion of taxpayers, and should be prosecuted at once).
(6) Colluding with lawmakers to rig funding legislation.

The feds need to investigate financial improprieties and operations subsidized by ratepayers.

(1) whether BPU is a conduit to launder monies to pay individuals for questionable activities that violate the civil rights of Jersey ratepayers;

(2) whether BPU insiders launder ratepayers’ money and are booking campaign donations as
BPU business expenses in order to evade the FEC;

Tampering With a Record or Otherwise Impeding an Official Proceeding makes it a federal crime for any person to corruptly alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal any document with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding or to otherwise obstruct, influence or impede any official proceeding. Individuals involved in such acts are liable for up to 20 years in prison and a fine.

inglejunkie: the problem is that even though this stinks to high heaven, what laws have been broken? Is it unlawful to have a conflict of interest?
Also, I would guess that Fox and Friends are smart enough to not write checks directly to themselves or to cover personal purchases. However they can create bogus jobs and projects that sound good on paper, but for which there is little work, and then pay themselves handsomely for the “work”. All perfectly legal.

Seems the State Ethics Commission is familiar with this type of activity and smaller potatoes have been fined for violating Ethics statutes. I guess they don’t act unless someone reports it officially. See news letter below wherein it lists some recent complaints and the decisions. Specifically note the case where the “state employee” used to work for the state and violated ethical standards…

I say we start a complaint campaign to the State Ethics Commission and continue to blast them until every ethical complaint is investigated and adjudicated!

ShoreGrrl, keep in mind, elected and appointed public officials are compelled to answer to a higher legal standard than the rest of us……b/c they hold the power of the public purse.

What is legal for the citizenry may be illegal for a public official.

CASE IN POINT ONE: Sen Harrison Williams was jailed for taking a gift of titanium stock. However, ordinary citizens can take gifts of stock with impunity—-it’s legal. The suspicion is that a Senator taking gifts indicates a quid pro quo—-that he is planning to illegally use his office to enrich a special interest (to the detriment of his constituents).

CASE IN POINT TWO: How Corzine personally profited from public office. Then-US Sen Corzine used the power of his Senate office to approve a tax treaty providing a special exemption from Japanese taxes on investment profits FOR A BANK WHICH CORZINE HAD A FINANCIAL STAKE. Principles of Jon’s so-called “blind trust” led the lucrative takeover of the troubled Japanese Shinesi bank. Corzine said he was **not aware** of, and did not **benefit** from the special provision. (Waiting for hysterical laughter to die down)

THE SHINESI DEAL UP CLOSE Nancy Martori Dunlap, Esq, is Corzio’s hand-picked trustee overseeing his vast assets, including his “blind trust.” Dunlap and James I. Black, Esq, execute financial decisions made by Corzine’s pal—-Wall Street’s J. Christopher Flowers—–the man who decides where to invest Corzine’s fortune–Flowers is the man who led the Shinesi Bank takeover. He and Jonny made a bundle of money.

Clearly, we are being governed by criminals who have no fear of law enforcement. “Hands-off the pols“ Corzine ordered Milgram and 1000 state lawyers—–do-nothings who suck up billion of tax dollars.

In a shockingly short time, New Jersey government has segued from being a responsible, honest assemblage that threw out shady lawmakers, to the one burdening us today——a passel of thieves that freely loots tax assets in full view of taxpayers with no shame or compunction.

What next? Will they stand on the floor of the legislature and read the honor roll, proudly listing the number of dollars each pol looted through government fraud?

How’s this for a politician’s sleight of hand?

Weiner’s Schools Development Authority replaced The Schools Construction Corp—the agency that spirited away $8.6 billion government funds. Corzine then said he supported voter approval of all future debt…but added a Goldman Sachs loophole……the borrowing must have a dedicated revenue source.

Corzine stupidly claimed school construction funding would be offset by income tax revenue. Then he reverted to the excuse that the spending was court-ordered.

(Get out your barf bags) “We should obey the law,” Corzine said.

Republican leaders insist all borrowing be put before the voters — with no loopholes. Taxpayers should boot any legislator who voted in favor of borrowing billions without citizen approval.

While I agree with many of the sentiments here, Astro’s assertions about solar are innaccurate. Solar power does work, and it works well — just not for Distributed Generation! Solar works best when installed at the source for direct consumption. Put solar on your house and you will not have to worry one blink about what the utility does or charges. It’s time to gain independence from Big Utilities and Big Government and solar is a great way to do that.

JMS is correct in that Solar power does work and works best when installed at the source of Direct Consumption! What PSE&G is creating is the wrong message! Sadly; It looks like a Done Deal! We will all be paying for the inefficiencies! What’s the cost? Transmission line loss for a Central Power Generation System vs a Distributed Architecture is significant! If the transmission loss (Ohms Law V=IR) averages 20% from a Central System and the 200,000 PSE&G solar panels are estimated to provide electric powerfor 80,000 homes (25 panels per house) an additional 16,000 homes could be Solar Powered if installed directly.

The next big expense that will be approved by the BPU will be for building out the transmission lines (grid) to accommodate projected increase in electric demand? With electric vehicles coming on-line demand is sure to increase. Building Solar Power at the point of Consumption would eliminate the need to build out the grid!

Then there is the Security Issue of protecting Larger Centralized Power Generating Systems!

From a Solar Power Generator’s perspective (Having a Solar Power System Installed on our house); the value of SRECs (currently estimated to be ~$4,000 per yr) will be diminished by 2013. The loss is not only in the SREC Dollars; but in the fact that fewer individual homeowners and businesses will be able to afford installing these systems. This will ensure the reliance on inefficient Power Genertation Systems!

Lastly; The Federal Government should set guidelines for Power Generating Companies since the rebate funds are sourced from Washington by our tax debt.

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Bob Ingle, Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey newspapers, on politics in "The Soprano State".

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Bob IngleBob Ingle is Senior Political Columnist for Gannett New Jersey Newspapers and co-author of The New York Times' Best Seller, "The Soprano State: New Jersey's Culture of Corruption." Hear him Fridays at 5 p.m. on www.tommygshow.com radio. twitter.com/bobingle99 E-mail Bob

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